(Source: https://www.msu.edu/~apaspec/conf09/apaconf09abstract.jpg)
Transnationalism, in the context of globalization, is a notion where immigrants are being connected socially and economically to multiple nation-states, specifically between their countries of origin and a new settlement. For this week’s reading, we focused on the idea of transnational and its importance within Asian American studies and Asian American identities. Some of the key concepts you should know for this week are transnational racism, transmigrants, and transnation.
In his article, “Asian American Studies in the Age of Transnationalism: Diaspora, Race, Community”, Okamura criticizes the attempt of other Asian American scholars to focus Asian American Study within the boundaries of United States. The transnational perspectives in Asian American Study, or AAS, have its root since the first day AAS was born. During the 1968, students from the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF) sought to link the struggles of colonized Asia, Africa, and Latin America with people of color in United States for the common cause. Trying to focus only on the domestic perspectives, while exclude the transnational / diasporas perspectives, would fail to make Asian American Study as a whole. The transnational direction also helps situate AAS within the context of global capitalism, the transmigrants and their diasporas experiences unique to every groups, and the new challenges of transnational racism and exploitations. In the era of globalization, technologies enable communities to be more connected to their supposedly homelands. Transnational racism works by emphasize the individual’s Asian background, cultural, and political opinions with an Asia nation, while denying his American status and ultimately his civil rights, privileges, and loyalties. No longer protected by laws, he is subjected to exploitations not only by United States employers, but also by Asian and Asian American business owners. “The smugglers and employers of cheap, docile, often female Asian migrant labor,” as the author cite the note of Evelyn Hu-Dehart, “are typically Asians and Asian American themselves.”
Transmigrants, as defined by Nina Glick Schiller, are immigrants whose daily lives depend on multiple and constant interconnections across international borders and whose public identities are configured in relationship to more than one nation-state. Transmigrant, or transnational immigrants, is a new type of immigration in the era of globalization, different from the usually assumed immigrants as uprooted and has no ties with their homelands. There are three forces that cause individual to live transmigrant life. First, the restructuring of capital that destroyed selected economy of certain area, forcing them to leave for a better place in order to survive. Capital investment in only one part of the country, while structural readjustment programs strip away areas that were used for self- sustains lives. People leaves their homeland to settle in more developed countries for comparatively higher incomes, while investing in properties and provide support for families in their country of origin, thus created a transnational family. Second, the discriminations and racism in U.S and Europes make people feel isolated, therefore they seeks connections and support from families and other communities in their homeland or other areas. Lastly, Nations find ways to encourage immigrants’ loyalties to their respective nations and their “new home”. U.S required citizens to swear undivided loyalty to the nation and their identity politic to be within nation’s border, while Philippines, for example, considers every Filipinos to be part of the country even when they live permanently abroad.
The growing interests of Asian American students, under the influence of globalization, cause Asian American Study to further explore the transnational / diasporas perspectives. Recent trend in ethnic study, along with explosion in scholar discussions suggests transnationalism is a renew turn for the field. Diasporas, as defined by Ien Ang, are transnational, spatially and temporary sociocultural formation of people, creating imagined communities who blurred and fluctuating boundaries are sustainted by real and/or symbolic ties to some original ‘homeland’. Recent scholarship on transnationalism and disaporas has show the instability of the term “Asian American”. It is necessary then to rethinking the concepts of Asian American Study and Asian American role in the global economy. The diasporas experiences of female Asian Americans and queer communities, for examples, have not yet fully understood and included. In a way, the exclusion of gender issues and queer identity help reinforced the hetero-normative and oriental stereotypes that were used as a tool for discrimination. In addition, reshaping our focus on transnational / diasporas perspective offers a way to disrupt U.S centric nationalism and boundaries, an old strategy of divide-and-rule politic in order to oppress and exploit Asian American population. Students in AAS are now more transnational than ever. Failure to address diasporas in the age of globalization is an inadequately representation of the community being studied.
In the article, “Is There a Transnation? Migrancy and the National Homeland among Overseas Filipinos,” Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr. examines two categories of migrant groups in the context of transnationalism in order to explain the different viewpoints of transnationalism. Anderson explains that the notion of transalization does not form or erase the need for authentic identities. Transnationalism creates identities manifested in the connection of nations. Aguilar explains the possibility of different transnational identity due to modern technology. Technology has created access points for people to be connected to different nations in terms of culture, politics, and/or economics. He then describes the differences between first and second generation migrants. The first generation of migrants can be depicting as the basic definition of transnational. This idea that people are interconnected to different nation sates. Their identity is manifested in the terms of diaspora. Their bond with the Asian homeland is as important as their current nation state. There is a sense of loyalty to both nations by the means of economical, political, or another means of connections. The second generation of migrants, transnational is a route to a new “multicultural societies.” Aguilar claims that this second generation migrants forms a new nationalism with a nation that is not of their parents’ homeland. The identity create by the second groups is one that cannot fully fit into their parents’ homeland culture. Second generation migrants claim a different path compare to the first. Therefore, the concept of transnationalism can be seen in different ways. The idea of transnational is not bounded by the idea that Asian Americans are connected to only to their Asian homeland. Asian Americans connection to another nation other than their Asia homeland can be strength due to the new advancements. This opens the doors to new understanding of Asian American transnationalism.
Questions:
1) How does transnational racism work to effectively exclude a group of individuals from their rights? Can you provide an example as study in previous Asian American courses? (Jonathan Y. Okamura)
2) What are the three main reasons for Transnational migration? (Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr.)
3) Can you provide one example showed in Schiller’s article that support one of the three main points in Transmigrants? (Hints: transnational family)(Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr.)
4) In what way would the inclusion of Queer Asian American’s perspective help expand Asian American experience? (Crhistopher Lee)
5) According to the reading by Aguilar, why would the Philippine state label migrant works as the “new hero”? (Filomeno V. Aguilar Jr.)
By Tien Mai and Wingsze Lam
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